13 Things I Learned from Original Six Alternate/Dance Captain Grace Mouat's Workshop/Q&A

All My Six Posts!
Over-Analyzing All the Historical References in Six- “Ex Wives,” “No Way,” “Don’t Lose Your Head” “Heart of Stone” “Haus of Holbein” “Get Down”
The Tudor Crown Inspiration in Six’s Logo; The Tudor Fashion Elements of the Costumes in Six (with Painting References)
Six the Musical Wives 1-3: Historical and Modern Costume Inspirations; Six the Musical Wives 4-6: Historical and Modern Costume Inspirations
The Ladies in Waiting of Six: Historical Inspirations and Costumes; Details from Six Costumer Gabriella Slade’s Instagram Takeover
The Early Costumes of Six the Musical: From Edinburgh to Cambridge to London
Updated Six the Musical Costumes for Broadway!; The Shoes of Six the Musical
The Alternate Costumes of Six the Musical; How the Six Alternates Change Their Styling for Each Queen
Virtual Dance Workshops and Q&As with Different Six Cast Members!

I did a dance workshop and Q&A with Grace Mouat last Sunday through Theatre Fan Workshops! Grace was the original swing/dance captain for Six the musical! She started on the first UK tour, which opened in July 2018, as the tour’s only swing (covering all six roles and debuting ALL of those roles in July and August 2018). She then moved to the West End and stayed there as a swing until August 2019. She now is an ensemble member and Juliet understudy in &Juliet.

Grace was utterly brilliant and taught us a dance from &Juliet that I was really honestly just very bad at, but it was fun! She makes the best faces and thankfully, I got screenshots of a lot of them!

Disclaimer as usual- I was typing as fast as I can and tried to mark which parts are direct quotes, but some of these may be slightly paraphrased.

1. What’s the story behind the shoes in &Juliet? (look at the costumes on my &Juliet posts 1 and 2 to see what i mean!)– “We got to choose what shoes we wanted. We got these amazing trainers to rehearse in and were like ‘they’re so new and shiny.’ And then they told us to bring them in to rehearsal because we’re going to ruin them. [New shiny trainers] wouldn’t go with the costumes and the tudor/modern mix up. Can you imagine me walking out in shiny white trainers? It’s totally deliberate. We’re also shakespeare’s players [so it goes with that sort of rough and tumble players look.]”

2. Advice for surviving in quarantine: Grace suggested doing lots of dance workshops, youtube live, barre classes, etc. to prepare. Theatre Fan Workshops host Taylor also chimed in to say that everywhere he auditioned, he had to do ballet and jazz, freestyle and jazz.

3. Hardest queen to sing – “Katherine Howard – she’s ridiculous. She was on all the low harmonies throughout the show – and then she sings all you wanna do and then with your voice –the set up is strange. Then with jane Seymour, it’s like why &Juliet is hard – low low low BELTY BELTY – etc – it’s not even about the range it’s about the up and down.” [She noted that this was the case in the West End version, apparently the harmony assignments for queens varies a lot between casts]

4. What was the audition process for &Juliet like? – “There was a massive buzz around it in terms of performance. They didn’t even tell us what it was called before we got the job, it was just ‘the max martin musical.’ I’d worked with [director] Luke Sheppard before. My audition was the DAY after I got back from the Edinburgh fringe with Six. I did ‘hit me baby one more time,’ I did the first scene with Juliet and my own pop song, and the director sat down and talked to me. It was so much more chill than people think – both six and &Juliet have been the most chill audition experiences I’ve had. I found out I got the job when Six was in Manchester, when I was cathy P.”

5. Advice for getting into musical theater: “Do more of these [dance workshops] if you want to enter the industry some day. Training in your own space -I pick up choreo so much quicker when I’m in my lounge than when I’m in my class because there’s no one around to compare you too – so use that.

I had a big fat notebook on my gap year when I hadn’t got into drama school. I used that as my musical theater dream life book. Every show I’d go to, I’d stick my ticket in the book. I’d put down who directed, who performed, performers that stuck out to me, performers I’d seen in shows before. I’d look for people that caught my eye and learned from that.

Learn from other people, go to as many shows as possible. There are so many shows that have been professionally filmed so you can see it up close. Watch films, watch acting, watch dancing. And connect with other people. Unfortunately the industry is so much about who you know, not to get a job even but to get into an audition. Be nice, be genuine, don’t be fake, because people will know.”

6. Fave choreography from any show I’ve been in – “First thing that came to my head is the ‘No Way’ dance break from Six. And in &Juliet – ‘Kissed a Girl’ is actually REALLY fun, and it’s on a revolve so it’s so hard, and I only come off the revolve once.”

7. What she misses most about being on stage – “Having fun with my friends! I miss those moments when you look across the stage and just [mugs for camera]. I miss reacting with people and being an ensemble, especially with the cast of &Juliet because they’re so much fun. And I really miss playing Juliet, it’s just the most special role.”

8. Most Memorable celebrity visit to &Juliet – “Katy Perry without a doubt. I was Juliet in front of KP. And she looked at me and I went [happy shocked face]. I was getting dressed after and going like, ‘I can’t believe that just happened, I can’t believe that just happened, I can’t believe that just happened’ and the band could hear me and they were just laughing at me. I met her afterward and she was just lovely."

Press night was the most bizarre night of my life. We didn’t get to meet everyone. I was like [singing and dancing] ‘one less problem without you’ and I looked up and Ed Sheeran was up in the box dancing – and I was like [open mouth].”

9. Favorite part of &Juliet – “As ensemble - The beautiful moment at the end when she’s like ‘it’s just the first day.’ I’m like YES I love feminism.

As Juliet - I love doing Roar but it’s just so stressful, there’s so much going on. ‘One More Try’ is probably my favorite because Jordan [Luke Gage, who plays Romeo] is one of my best friends. We actually got a note being like – ‘We can tell you’re friends.’ And I had to work to flirt with Jordan, but it wasn’t that hard because he’s one of the most beautiful people in existence.”

10. What was it like after doing Six (with only six cast members and no costume changes) going back to a musical with a large cast and costumes? “Uh SO WEIRD. I was telling everyone like, ‘Girls I can’t do it. I hope you all know how lucky you are’ while talking to the cast in Manchester. The costume changes in &Juliet, like in Roar. Y’all don’t know what’s going on in the wings during ‘Hit Me Baby One Time, it’s MAYHEM, because we’re all changing for ‘Show Me the Meaning.’

All the costume changes in &Juliet – at the beginning it was stressful. But you got used to it, and you usually have the same dresser so they know everything about how you put on the costume and such.”

11. How much did Six change over the time (from summer 2018-August 2019) she was in it? “Six changed a ton! I had a different costume on tour. Alexia [McIntosh, who played Anna of Cleves] had a different costume for some of the tour, she used to be silver, and she used to have longer hair. And jayej [referring to Jarneia Richard-Noel, who played Catherine of Aragon and had much longer hair on tour]. Everything’s different. The choreo’s different, the scenes are different. There were SO many changes until we got to the London.

It was ridiculous as a swing. I was a big journey with Catherine Parr. She used to have a plug she’d pull and the whole thing would go [womp womp sound], and she’d go ‘STOP.’ I’m doing a queendom blog soon and there will be unseen footage there.”

12. Funniest onstage moments– “[The Six cast] actually had a massive chat about this the other day. Let me see if I screenshot that chat. There were just so many! My number one favorite was early on, when Millie [O’Connell, who played Anne Boleyn] had to say promo code and she couldn’t get it out and she said, ‘make sure to check out the slogan mogan frogan promo code.’ Something like that.

When I went on on as Jane Seymour, I accidentally said ‘Let’s all commiserate the loss of his mother, my son.’ It just was weird.

In ‘All You Wanna Do,’ I was thrown on as Cleves and I was facing the front and all the girls are facing the back. Everyone’s in the back laughing, and I’m directly behind Aimee. I just had to turn it into a sarcastic smile, which is what I would do whenever Millie would make me laugh.

There will be more stories in the [Queendom] blog/vlog – like when Jayej [Jarneia Richard-Noel, who played Catherine of Aragon] threw a shoe and natalie’s knee slide [Natalie Paris, who played Jane Seymour] in Haus of Holbein.”

13. Advice about going into the industry as a director/choreographer? – “I think that is one of those things you really have to work yourself up to. It does help if you have a bit of a performer’s background as well. Look at assisting jobs, if you can assist directors, taking people to work on scenes when they’re free, helping the ensemble find their things if the director’s focusing on the main action, running cover rehearsals, etc. It’s a very hard and fun job that will give you loads of experience with directors and knowledge of how directors work.

And social media is your friend. Start choreographing now and send it to choreographers you admire, like Drew McOnie , Tom Jackson Greaves. Send it to them and ask, ‘can you give me some feedback – what do you think of my style?’ You never know who’s going to come across the video saying ‘choregraphed by your name’ and say, ‘I want to get them on my next project.’”